He was not surrounded by the same concentration of wounded and non-ambulatory people that Joseph faced.

He had maintained a position or group that could move.

And he had spent enough of his long life watching the army’s promises dissolve to conclude that trusting these particular promises would lead to permanent loss and eventual death in an unfamiliar place.

Both men were right about the specific situations they faced.

Both decisions were made in good faith within genuine constraint.

The subsequent history validates aspects of each perspective: those who surrendered did eventually — after years of exile and significant loss — return to the Northwest, but not to their homelands, and not as Joseph had understood the terms at Bear Paw.